


Pretty Men Don't Belong in Libraries

by MariaSpade



Series: Human!AU [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Bad Flirting, First Meetings, Flirting, Librarian Castiel, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 17:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/813932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MariaSpade/pseuds/MariaSpade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time they meet Castiel swears he is mistaken because beautiful construction men don't flirt with librarians. Another deeper look at an aspect touched on in First Times, this time their first meeting. Although part of the series, it can be read totally separately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretty Men Don't Belong in Libraries

Castiel likes his job. He works in the city, at a library with big white walls and big windows and clean tables and an easy going atmosphere. He works in the library, normally in the reference section but he has the day shift at the children’s table every Monday and Wednesday, so it’s quiet since all the children are in school. People tend to leave him alone, too, children are less and less interested in taking out books. They all want mom and dad’s tablets and shiny nooks and other e-readers and the novelty of a hard cover and pages that stick sometimes is fading and no one wants a part of it. It is quiet most days from nine to four or ten to five and all he really has to do is check books back in that have been left for him, reshelf things, and sometimes wipe down spots that sticky fingers have left behind. It is a slow day in fact today, because he has finished checking all the books left for him back in by eleven and the only sticky mess seems to be spilled juice and that only takes ten minutes. (Yesterday was a beautiful day outside, there were not many children in the library to couch and sneeze over everything.) It is noon now, and Castiel is just thinking of taking his lunch out here to the counter while he rereads his own battered old copy of The Hobbit for the fourth time, when the front doors open. The doors are outside the entrance to the children’s section, and maybe this isn’t odd, but what he does find odd is the patron who enters the children section of the library at noon on a Wednesday when most kids are in school. This may very well be because not only should all the kids be in school, but this isn’t a child come to disturb his peace and quiet. It is a full grown man, and perhaps the most gorgeous Cas has laid eyes on in a very, very long time. He’s fairly tall, and Cas is good with guessing heights, and he thinks this man is a good inch or two taller than he himself is. But it’s those eyes, oh those eyes, that get him, because they are this shade of green Cas finds he really, really likes, honestly probably more than he ought to. There’s a spot of red on his nose, too, like a sunburn, and a pretty splash of freckles, and Cas has never been a freckle man but if you asked him right this moment he would swear his allegiance to freckles from now until next Friday and back and he wouldn’t stop once to breath because really how can you say he’s never been into freckles when he’s never seen them on a man this gorgeous, that’s not fair.  
But gorgeous men are not seen often in the library, even Cas knows that, and to see one in the children’s section at this time of day is fairly odd, but more than anything what confuses him most is when this very fine, very handsome specimen of a man makes his quiet and clumsy way forward to the desk that Cas sits behind. And no no no, pretty men are not allowed this close this is Cas’ spot please back away before he jumps from behind the desk and has a lengthy conversation with you about how he’s always been a freckles sort of man for the past twenty-three and a half seconds. The man obviously does not belong in a library, and the way he moves even says this, because he seems so unsure of himself and goodness Castiel would like to give him directions if he would only speak and oh goodness hold on a second he is speaking.  
“I need, uh, a little help,” he says, and his voice is deep and rich and the first thing Castiel thinks of is honey and the second thing he thinks of is strawberries. Neither of these things actually really go along with the image this man presents, because he’s in a leather jacket and he has a little sunburn on his nose and dirt on his jeans as well and boots that are scuffed and he doesn’t look like honey or strawberries but more like leather and bed sheets and nostalgia and rock and roll music. But he sounds like the honey mom gives you when your throat hurts and he’s sweet like strawberries even though he’s said a grand total of six words don’t try to tell Cas otherwise because he knows this man is sweet like strawberries.  
“I’m…. uh.” And this, this is the wonderful thing Cas says, these two words, and one of them is hardly a word at all, but they stick in his throat and one and a half words at one syllable each is all he can get out right now. He swallows as this man watches him with pretty green eyes and tries again, and he swears to himself he won’t use the words freckles or honey or strawberries. “Well what can I help you with?” He was going to say he’s the children’s librarian today, come back tomorrow so I can help you and count your freckles but please lean a little closer so I can do so. But there’s no one here now anyway and he was just going to go on lunch but if he talks with beautiful men for a little while he can have that to himself and get his lunch in a bit.  
“I was… I was thinking of getting an online degree,” the beautiful green eyed man says. Cas nods a bit, pretending this means something to him, but if he looks closely he can count one, two, three, four freckles before he realizes well he ought to help the man out.  
“You can use the computers in the reference room for whatever you want,” Cas says, hoping this is the answer he wants and the one he won’t listen to because he isn’t supposed to use the ones here in the kids’ section but maybe he’ll stay and chat anyway. “These ones only have games on them. There’s a one hour limit on them but you can log in twice.” Five freckles, six freckles. There’s one that sits right where his cheek arches into his nose and Cas is dubbing this one his favorite.  
The man mumbles some sort of thank you, but he doesn’t move, he just sort of stands there for a minute like he might ask more or he might look at pamphlets but says and touches nothing. “I’m Dean,” he says after a long moment, and his sort of moves like he’s going to shake Cas’ but it stops and folds and retracts and it looked rough and warm and big and Cas will hold it if Dean wants while he tells him about freckles and how beautiful he’s always found them. “Dean Winchester. I, uh, I moved to the city a few months back from Kansas and I’m working down the street on a construction job and I’m just on my lunch break now and I might as well do this now rather than after work when I’ll be pretty sweaty and dirty.” Cas thinks Dean can be sweaty and dirty all he wants in all the ways he wants to be but doesn’t say so because he likes those green eyes and wants them to stay.  
“Castiel,” he says, because if he has his name maybe he’ll stay. “Castiel Novack.” It’s quick, two words more, but Dean seems interested.  
“Where does a librarian get a name like that?” Dean asks, and his smile is beautiful and Cas wants to see it more. Every day if possible, Dean needs to come by every day and smile at him now, he just has to.  
“Well the funny thing is I was Castiel before I was a librarian,” he says, and Dean smiles again and it makes Cas smile and lean forward on the desk. If he didn’t know better he’d think he’s being flirted with, but beautiful construction men don’t flirt with librarians. But maybe, just maybe Dean flirts with Cas. “Castiel is the name of an angel of the Lord. My parents were very religious. Well they are very religious and they just so happened to be when they named me as well. I have a sister Anna as well.” But enough about Cas because suddenly construction men with dirty blonde almost brown hair and freckles are at the top of The List of Things that Interest Castiel Novack.  
They talk for a good forty minutes. Dean cracks jokes, which it turns out is a thing he’s good at doing. He’s good at making Cas smile, too, and his cheeks almost hurt and he doesn’t smile a lot usually, not because he’s unhappy but just because he doesn’t smile a lot is all, but he’s smiling and he’s doing it a lot while Dean cracks jokes and gives him smiles and asks about him. He asks a lot about Cas, and Cas tells him his parents are very nice, yes, very open, too, and this is his way of hinting at Dean that he’s available and interested in gorgeous construction workers, and how his sister lives in the Bronx but Dean doesn’t listen much to this, he doesn’t even crack a joke asking if Anna is single because (Cas thinks) he doesn’t much care. He tells Dean he’s lived in the city all his life and he lives down the block a ways. Dean tells him again he’s somewhat new to the city and he got this job very quickly and he’s happy with it too (and Cas figures here the online degree part was a fib and he’s very glad Dean came up with it and came here) and he has a baby brother with a boyfriend somewhere in another borough but don’t ask him which one just yet because his brother and his boyfriend moving in together soon and he gets to have Sammy’s old bed (Sam must be his brother) but they haven’ decided where to move yet and he just hopes he stays away from Manhattan because he’s starting to like it quite a bit (Cas says nothing to this but his cheeks burn a pretty red because he thinks Dean is saying he’s starting to like Cas being in Manhattan quite a bit) and kind of wants it to himself. (By then Cas is certain it isn’t Manhattan he’s talking about but beautiful construction men don’t flirt with librarians but maybe just maybe Dean flirts with Cas.) He likes the good food he can find here and they didn’t have pizza damn near as good back in Kansas as they do here and their libraries weren’t quite as beautiful and blue eyed and hold on, he laughs, libraries don’t have eyes and he corrects himself and says librarians and by now yes, yes perhaps construction men don’t flirt with librarians but Dean is flirting with Cas and he quite likes it. By now time has passed, forty minutes in fact, and Dean has to get going to get back to the construction site on time to punch back in. He curses softly as he leans back off the desk because he didn’t actually get to eat, but he insists he had a big breakfast anyway.  
“Wait here just a moment,” Cas insists, and Dean agrees because work can wait. Cas goes to the room behind the desk and pulls his lunch out of the fridge, just a simple salad but he wants Dean to have it, and even when Dean says no he insists and pushes it into his hands and says he brought a sandwich as well that he’ll eat. It’s a lie but it’s the only way Dean finally caves and takes the salad, saying he’ll eat it on the way back to the site.  
“But, listen” he says, and his smile means he is up to something and Cas has learned that he likes that. “Funny story, I have a spot in my phone list for a beautiful librarian but I’ve never been able to fill it in, maybe you could help me out?” It’s such an obvious way of asking for Cas’ number and it’s meant to be smooth but it’s so ridiculous that Cas just laughs a little and says he knows of someone if Dean could just hand his phone over quickly. He puts his number in under his name, just ‘Cas’ though because Dean says it in a way that he likes a lot with his honey voice and he said Castiel wrong the first time he tried saying it and Cas thinks it’s too cute that if Dean does it again he might stop breathing. Just Cas it is then in his phone and Dean takes his phone back. Cas is still leaning forward on the desk even as Dean is leaving, but when he turns he makes eye contact with Dean as he walks out the door and he swears there’s a wink there for him but maybe he’s seeing things. Construction men don’t flirt with librarians but Dean flirts with Cas and you know what, Cas flirts right back and it’s going to be like that for a long while until they realize it isn’t flirting anymore the day they get married.


End file.
